Lord Salisbury, of course, took a very different view of
Lord Dufferin from that taken by Lord Dufferin himself. He had previously stated that he was not indifferent to the long roll of the great names of his predecessors, "least of all to the great and remarkable and conspicuous merits of the distinguished man who was his predecessor in that post." And in thanking those who had drunk his health, he enume- rated some of Lord Dufferin's distinctions. First, he was by inheritance an Irish landlord, and therefore belonged to a class to which Parliament had recently directed a great deal of attention, which, however, English landlords do not exactly covet. Next, he had gained for himself a great many more distinctions than any he had inherited. He had been not only the Warden of the Cinque Ports, but the Warden of Canada and the Warden of the Indian Empire, and he had filled with honour the great Embassies to Russia, to Constantinople, to Rome, and to Paris, and though quite capable of holding his own amongst the great talkers in Parliament, he bad discharged faithfully and silently the duties of the great positions referred to.
